Doll Face Meme!

So I'm a woman of a few talents (surviving bad cinema, badminton, Boggle) but like any mere mortal, certain skills elude me. Organization. Social planning. Planning. Planning socialism, you get the idea.

For instance, I announced a contest several months back which still excites me, and yet I've yet to select a winner. What this means is 1) I will do so this weekend and 2) Said winner will receive a special "I'm sorry I'm a procrastinating poophead prize," fear not, not comprised of poop. This also means I will start reviewing the recommended films with intros from the lovely and daring souls who entered.

Also, it's social blogging season and like most times of year, I rarely seem to be 'wid it.' I've had half a Billy Loves Stu  inspired meme sitting in my draft box for a month, 9 entries into my Horror Digest  honored Willies, and terribly lax thank yous for Versatile Blogging. 

But finally, I found a trend I can easily hop onto! No, not Bandz or street dancing (well, kind of street dancing...hint hint bonus episode of the GleeKast coming at you in 3D!) but the Screen Grab Meme Spectacular bestowed upon me by none other than the baton-twirling BJ-C of Day of the Woman .  Bloggers are ordered to grab a few images with one unifying theme. Now I combed through my globby brain for days trying to figure out what would be appropriate before finally bashing my own noggin with a frying pan for overlooking the obvious.

Starting with The Godfather of Dollinema...

whose name need not be said

Baby Oopsy Daisy, Demonic Toys

Dolly Dearest, Chucky's first true love

Cowboy Curtis (I'm guessing), from Stuart Gordon's Dolls

My Cheat (not screen grab of cinema)

Billy Baloney, Pee-Wee Herman's naughty friend. True story: despite my doll phobia, this thing lived in my house all through my childhood. As recently as three years ago, my mother kept it on top of the refrigerator and would occasionally bring it to the dinner table with the prime aim of making me uncomfortable.

Dream Warriors Got No Strings!

One of the eeriest (if memory serves) PG-Rated films of all time, Roland Emmerich's (yes, that Roland Emmerich) Joey, aka Making Contact

Further proof that all dummies are evil: Anthony Hopkins and Fats, Magic 

May and Suzy

The soon-to-be-Criterioned Night of the Hunter

It takes a bad man to combine clowns with dolls. 

Steven Spielberg, I see your true soul.

Blade, the respectable leader of the Puppet Master series

Mannequins = Dolls all grown up.

Mannequins=me crying in the corner

Tourist Trap 

An underrated anthology classic, Tales From the Hood

And we conclude with the question that's plagued mankind throughout the ages:

How'd it get buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurned?

I was supposed to use this space to tag fellow bloggers to make them work, but how can I focus on choosing who to assign Googling to when the best YouTube compilation of all time is screaming at me?

I Want to Ride My Bicycle

Not surprisingly, May is National Bike Month and even less surprisingly, that reminds me of a few good--or just entertaining--horror films.

1. And Soon the Darkness

A bicycle holiday through the French countryside sounds like a lovely idea, but the two lovely ladies at the center of Robert Fuest’s 1970 thriller have some pretty serious troubles ahead, and only part of that stems from the fact that both are wearing chafe-inducing hot pants. After a cranky are-we-there-yet squabble, the good girl Jane and flirty Cathy go their separate ways and a mysterious underwear thief pops latter’s bicycle tires. Yes, that’s literal, but let it lead your mind down a much darker path and enjoy this tense little cat-and-mouse tale unwind.

2. Demonic Toys

In the early 1990s, one could always count on Full Moon Entertainment to deliver something entertaining to VCRs across the country. Enter Demonic Toys, a messy--albeit enjoyable--horror featuring foul-mouthed baby dolls, hungry jack-in-the-boxes, satanic rituals, and, most relevant, rude little blond girls in gas masks on tricycles. Yes, that last part does send a significant chill upon first glance (particularly if, like me, you’re a tad uncomfortable around...you know...little blond girls in gas masks on tricycles) and like most Full Moon films, the scares don’t quite take themselves seriously long enough to merit any lasting effect but still...rude little blond girls in gas masks on tricycles. 

3. The Shining

Is it possible to walk through an antiquated motel with ugly carpeting and long hallways and NOT find yourself bemoaning the absence of a hot cycle? It just seems like the best possible mode of transportation to help navigate a haunted mansion. Maybe not the fastest escape from drunk daddy and his ax, but at least it takes you back to childhood. 

4. 2001: A Space Odyssey

Who knew Stanley Kubrick was such a bike enthusiast? Witness his second (or chronologically first, but set in the then-future, so...you get the idea) foray into bike horror in a more conceptional manner with 2001. The idea of tandem bicycles is already a tad unsettling--something about romantic exercise in a weirdly long vehicle just seems off to me--so hearing H.A.L. sing so coldly about “A bicycle built for two” in his dying cyber breaths lands on already chilled ears. Especially when you picture a lovely lass named Daisy riding a two-seater with a surly computer. The visual is a challenge in itself. 

5. The Wizard of Oz

Jaws. Darth Vader. The Wicked Witch of the West.

All supervillains. All equipped with incredibly iconic musical themes that speak to the very terror they instill in children, drunken sailors, Jedis, and Munchkins. Though it’s Mrs. Gulch--not the green-faced sorceress--who spends an extended time on a banana seat, children of all ages (and of all generations for 60+ years) have felt the hairs stand up on their trembling arms when those fast-paced notes blow by like a biker caught in a tornado. After all, this is a woman who wanted to kill one of cinema’s most efficient mutts!

6. The Toxic Avenger

Hey kids, tired of your mom forcing an ugly, socially unacceptable bike helmet on your sensitive adolescent head? Throw a little Troma her way and help yourself in the process with this 1984 splatter classic, wherein naughty drunk driving teens make serious sport out of running over pedestrians and cyclists. The best victim? A passing preteen (double points) whose safety gear can’t protect his noggin from the heavy skidmarks of a full-speed tire.

7. Maximum Overdrive

So a comet is nearing your planet and anything running on electricity wants to kill you. Hope you got a 10 speed! Because how else can you escape a clown-faced mack truck, determined lawnmower, and homicidal soda machine shooting out Pepsi cans as if they were bullets? The very thought makes me want to sign up for spin class in order to prepare.

8. Uzumaki

Ah, the innocence of young love, perfectly captured in Higuchinsky’s surreal J-thriller by an amorous couple’s daily bike rides through the town. The makings of a lovely relationship expected to bloom into prom dances and tenuous hand-holding...if only it wasn’t for the village-wide infection that renders residents suicidal or snail-like. 

9. In the Mouth of Madness

It was a dark and lonely night on the highway heading into Hobb’s End, and though he may have conquered T-Rexes and played the antichrist, even Sam Neill got skittish when a John Carpenter lookalike in washed-out denim peddles by in the wee hours of a haunted morning. 

10. Prince of Darkness

Despite an assumed short wind from years of chain smoking, I think we can safely assume John Carpenter appreciates a pleasant bike ride from time to time.  Witness this 1987 horror, the second entry in his loose Apocalypse trilogy, wherein a homeless Alice Cooper uses half a bicycle for a casual back alley impalement. 

11. Pee-Wee's Big Adventure

Not necessarily horrific, but the inclusion of sharp-fanged clowns with suspect medical degrees is enough to terrify anyone, and considering their main motive in Tim Burton's classic 1985 film is to destroy the coolest bicycle ever to grace the silver screen, I'd say they more than earn a place in this list.

Modern Art Is Soooooo Subjective

If movies have taught me anything, it’s that the future is a world I never want to live in. No amount of Wild Stallions or Jetsons-like housekeeping could make me wish myself into a land rife with infertility, leather, nuclear fallout, totalitarianism, android bounty hunters, and more than one scenario wherein Kevin Costner is the messiah. Sure, it can be argued that the better time leaping movies are actually commenting on today’s society, but that still doesn’t mean I’m jumping on a hoverboard any time soon.

Richard Stanley’s 1990 dystopian techno thriller Hardware does little to change my views on the future....which I’m now apparently living in. This recently reissued film borrows a little inspiration from The Terminator, Soylent Green, Z.P.G., and a few other post apocalyptic films of the past, capturing a striking mix of 70s hard edged 70s cinema and 80s action to be its own interesting, if highly imperfect slice of metallic sci-fi.

Quick Plot: It’s the 21st century from a 20th century point of view, meaning the world is a sizzling desert filled with robot rubble, red skies, and intrepid little people. Iggy Pop’s DJ voice informs us that the government is set to pass a proposal to control the population by sterilizing anybody found reproducing, as resources are scarce and radiation is high. It’s an ugly world bathed entirely in an orange fuzz that burns straight through the camera lens.

A lonely and haunting opening follows a ragged gas-masked scavenger searching a wasteland for any goods to sell. He comes upon a few pieces of MARK 13, a failed cyborg experiment worth its weight in trading. Our nameless traveller brings his haul to a tech savvy junk trader named Alvy (Willow’s Mark Northover) and sells what looks like the head of C3P0's rebellious older brother to Mo, a roving soldier played by Dylan McDermott. Mo in turn presents it to his artist girlfriend Jill (Stacy Travis) for a Christmas/sorry-I’m-never-here gift. She’s elated because it’s just what she needs to complete her latest piece (after a hip dose of spray paint that would have gone perfectly with a kicking pair of American flag Converse, of course).

As you might imagine, MARK-13 ain’t WALL-E. Once Mo slips out of the room and Jill falls asleep (irresponsibly with a joint in hand, mind you) the wiry widget juices himself up with the apartment power grid and assembles himself into a homicidal little machine using other electronics in reach. As if that wasn’t enough to make for the worst yuletide ever, Jill’s foul-mouthed voyeur of a neighbor (who resembles what would happen if Jon Lovitz ate John Favreau and washed him down with popcorn butter) forces his way into her hallway with the automatic door sealing tightly behind him.

Hardware is an odd film, and not just because it is blatantly stylized with quick edits, robot vision, and a colored lens. Filmmaker Richard Stanley seemed to put a lot of thought and energy in establishing this post nuclear holocaust society, sprinkling in television commercials and window views that drop eerie hints about just devastated the world has become. Some of Mo’s conversations with Alvy and his friend Shades about how the radiation has affected them are truly haunting in a perfectly post apocalyptic way, and the background politics of sterilization, government assisted living, and drug use could easily have been the central device of their own feature length films. Great care was clearly taken with painting the sky such a rusted hue and yet, Hardware chooses a very different path for its 93 minute runtime.

What I didn’t like about Stanley’s film was, in a word, its plot. We’re presented with this dying society rife with political implications, but Hardware chooses instead to focus on the loud and clunky events of this one apartment. The bulk of the film features Jill’s struggle to evade MARK 13, who I like to think of as what would happen if Robocop’s son was a 15 year old punk hanging out with the wrong crowd. It’s action packed and has a few big payoff moments, but there’s something so limited about Hardware’s second half that can’t help but let down the sprawlingly dystopian setup. 

High Points

William Hootkins supporting role as a foul peeping tom adds a sick but highly engaging touch of oddness to the film


From the casual talk about cancer to the snippets of radio and television ads for radiation-free produce, the environmental and societal breakdown of Hardware is sufficiently disturbing

The wordless opening scene that follows a nomadic junk trader through a dusty red desert is breathtaking

Low Points

For a film with such a carefully envisioned dystopian scope, the limits of one evil robot encounter can’t help but feel like a letdown

It’s a style choice and for the most part, a very strong one but still: so much flashing lights can give even a healthy young woman one mean headache 

Things We Can Expect Sometime In the 21st Century

A completely sealed apartment with occasional bursts of open door radiation will do incredible things for your naturally curly hair

GWAR’s popularity will soar

Housing for those on welfare will be spacious, offer great views, and have a steady supply of running water

Newscasters will style themselves like 1970s era of anchormen

Thankfully, radiation-free reindeer steak will be available for the holiday season and advertised by the same commercial directors that filmed the final montage movie moments of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure

Robots will be homicidal and prudish

Rent/Bury/Buy

After nearly 19 years, Hardware has finally received a deluxe DVD release in a 2 disc set loaded with extras. I, however, purchased my copy several months ago from Cinema De Bizarre , a fantastic service with great deals on hard-to-find flicks. On that hand, I can’t really tell you if the DVD is worth an investment but if it sounds interesting to you and you find it well priced, it’s a leap worth taking. I can imagine the extras being somehow more fascinating than the finished product simply because Stanley seems to be a unique artist with a whole lot of dramatic ideas that probably didn’t make the 90 minute cut. I didn’t love Hardware, but it’s a neat little picture stuffed with innovative ideas and a distinct visual style.

I Believe The Children Are the Future (so stop trying to kill them)

If the Brothers Grimm taught us anything, (aside from to beware of strangers or step-families) it’s that kids can generally handle macabre humor and violent justice. Cinderella’s stepsisters had it a lot worse in the 19th century, when their snotty dishonesty cost one foot arch and four eyeballs. Walt Disney’s 9 Old Men toned down the crow pecking finale, but anyone well-versed in the Disney canon can probably remember gasping at Pinnocchio’s donkey dance or the zombie-like horde of marching broomsticks hungry for Fantasia era Mickey Mouse brains (that is what they wanted, right?).

Here are a few more moments, characters, and movies made specifically for a younger audience that will leave even the most seasoned horror veteran shaking behind their Teddy Ruxbans and Good Guy dolls.

The Witches

Gene Wilder’s madcap take on Willy Wonka gets the Tim Burton remake and hipster t-shirts, but it’s this 1990 adaptation of another Roald Dahl novel that truly captures kiddie horror. Angelica Huston brings Oscar cred to one of the best screen villainess of the 90s as The Grand High Witch, a Sam Raimi-like crone and possible long-lost sister of the Crypt Keeper. Smaller moments--like seeing a little girl live out a haunted life inside a faded oil painting hung on her parents’ wall-come straight out of a gothic ghost tale, while witchy face transformations give Rick Baker werewolves some fierce competitions. And I can’t think of a single moment in any of the Friday the 13th films more suspenseful than watching a plucky 10 year old orphan morph into a mouse--only to then be chased by a mass of bald British women pent on the genocide of the juvenile population.

Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure

Speaking of Tim Burton, one of modern cinema’s most innovative (and frustrating) directors has specialized in ‘family’ films with underlying (and overt) creepiness. See Beetlejuice, The Corpse Bride, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and just about any other entry from his resume for further proof. I choose to discuss Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure for very personal reasons. Sure, one eccentric man-child set loose on roadside America unsettles a few moviegoers, but Burton does a funny dance to get us on Pee-Wee’s side: he terrorizes the poor guy with a series of creepy encounters far weirder than Jombi’s smiles or Billy Bologna’s beady eyes. A few examples: a neon dinosaur park, Twilight Zone-ish road to nowhere, and, worst of all, the most terrifying dream sequence to ever appear in a PG-rated film, featuring cruel and gleefully sinister clowns who hate bicycles. Sure, it all ends well enough, but Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure is not a film for the weak-kneed. If you haven’t seen it since your last bowl of Mr. T cereal, then I recommend at visit to your local video store. Just be sure to tell ‘em Large Marge sent ya! (and then scream and hitchhike for your life).

The Wizard of/Return to Oz

It’s hard to find a living or recently dead person who has never seen Judy Garland skip down the Yellow Brick Road and of that nearly 98% of the human population, I would bet some ruby slippers that the vast majority will admit to having been scared green by Margaret Hamilton’s portrayal of The Wicked Witch of the West. That sharp cackle, emerald skin, and allergic reaction to what every other living creature requires to live is, to put it mildly, disturbing. What could be more frightening?

Oh, I don’t know...how about an equally evil witch who collects the heads of pretty young women and displays them in a museum hall? Or her army of gangly-limbed goons dressed like punk jesters yet suited up for roller derby? Yup, 1985’s Return to Oz replaced catchy dance numbers with spooky eyed Fairuza Balk fleeing electro-shock treatment requested by  Carrie’s mother. Incredibly enough, it didn’t break any box office records upon its release. That being said, Return to Oz offers an engrossing story, strong performances, and an incredible visual design. Think of it as a stopover bridge between Labyrinth and Pan’s Labyrinth.

Sesame Street

Personally, I’ve never had a negative experience with anything created by Jim Henson (although the The Jim Henson Hour does still send some chills down my spine) but I felt that I owed America’s most beloved destination a mention for some of its more colorful (and perhaps questionable) residents. While I spent my childhood hiding from the invisible Chucky I was sure was constantly hunting me, my older brother’s boogyman was none other than public television’s most cuddly vampire, The Count. Cookie Monster has more than likely devoured a small child or two in a sugar-fueled bender and I once babysat a little girl who suffered from reoccurring nightmares starring the unibrowed Bert. So I guess there’s some people would prefer to not to get, get to Sesame Street.

and a show that inexplicably does NOT scare children, but should

In 50 years, the world will undoubtedly be a very different, much less pleasant place. We can certainly point a few foreboding fingers dim-witted world leaders and irresponsible energy resourcing, but I reserve the brunt of blame for a far more diabolical enemy that has been hard at work in manipulating, corrupting, and possibly possessing the future of mankind.

How else can one possibly explain the fact that kids born in the late 90s seem to have no fear of brightly colored, tv-bellied aliens living a Memento-like existence of short-term memory loss surrounded by bunnies? My theory--and I can’t possibly be alone in this--is that the messiah overlord/sungod baby is communicating--via the antenna connections atop the fat-four’s heads--a master plan detailing world domination. I never thought I’d say this, but Barney’s message of peace and love suddenly feels like must-see viewing for the youth of the world. 

I can’t imagine how many films, shows, and toys I’m leaving out, so please share a few of your own below.